Vale Tatjana Lukic

Tatjana Lukic, who was a member of the poneme list for quite a while, has died. she passed away in the early hours of yesterday morning, after a courageous battle with cancer over the last two years. she was almost 49. too young to die.
[Joanne Burns, on the poetry list 'poneme': August 11th 2008]

About Tatjana:

Tatjana Lukic was born in the former Yugoslavia (Croatia) where she spent her first 33 years. She received degrees in philosophy and sociology from Sarajevo University, and lived in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and the Czech Republic before leaving the region during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. In 1992 she arrived, with her young family, as a refugee in Australia. She did not speak English, but learned the language, studied and worked.

Prior to her exile in Australia, Lukic had published poetry throughout former Yugoslavia, and won national poetry awards. In recent years she started to write again, now in English. Her English poems have appeared in international journals.

(information from the ICORN international cities of refuge network http://www.icorn.org/articles.php?var=66 )

A tribute to Tatjana is on Ralph's blog - http://www.walleahpress.com.au/b25/?p=708

Links to some of Tatjana's published poems can be found on this blog as well as an exert from an interview with Tatjana for the Australian Poets at Work series in Thylazine no 12 (June 2007)

Her death is a sad loss to Australian poetry.